Unlike The Monkees, the Monkeemobile always made its own music

Starting out as an imaginary band in a make-believe television show about “four insane boys” trying to make it in the music business, The Monkees—Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Micky Dolenz—eventually became an authentic, chart-topping band. Their famous car, however, has been the real deal all along.

The Monkeemobile, an iconic custom car that takes a back seat only to the Batmobile among ’60s TV cars, was the creation of Dean Jeffries and is now considered a cultural icon. Getting to know the Monkeemobile first requires getting to know The Monkees.

Contrary to popular belief, Jones, Nesmith, Tork, and Dolenz weren’t actors who became musicians; they all had musical backgrounds. Jones starred as the Artful Dodger in the Broadway musical production of Oliver!, Nesmith had been recording music in Los Angeles since the early ’60s, Tork was performing folk music in New York’s Greenwich Village, and Dolenz was a former kid actor who played guitar and sang in a couple of bands, including The Missing Links.

In other words, the four already knew the challenge of making it in the music biz.

The idea for The Monkees was first suggested by aspiring filmmaker Bob Rafelson in 1962 but never gained momentum. Rafelson and collaborator Bert Schneider revived the idea after the Beatles found movie success with A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965), and Screen Gems Television bought the idea in April 1965.

Jones was the first to be cast for the show, since he was already under contract with Screen Gems. Nesmith, Tork, and Dolenz were among 437 aspiring actors/musicians who answered this ad in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter in September 1965:

Madness!! Auditions. Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series. Running parts for 4 insane boys, age 17–21. Want spirited Ben Frank’s* types. Have courage to work. Must come down for interview.

*A popular late-night hangout in West Hollywood.

Nesmith was the only one of the future Monkees who actually saw the ad; Tork learned of the cattle call through his friend Stephen Sills, while Dolenz heard about it from his agent. Although Jones was a good drummer, he was only 5 foot 3, and the show’s producers thought he’d look even more diminutive sitting behind the drums, so they made him the frontman.

Nesmith and Tork could both play guitar and bass, and since neither was interested in playing the drums, Dolenz was tasked with learning to play from scratch.

Regardless of The Monkees’ musical talents, Don Kirshner, Screen Gems’ head of music, originally had the four fake their parts and used studio musicians for the show while bringing Jones and Dolenz into the studio to record vocals. Jones had a strong voice and sang ballads like “Daydream Believer,” while Dolenz handled the rest. Nesmith often said Dolenz’s voice defined The Monkees’ sound more than Jones’ did.

The first episode of The Monkees aired on NBC on September 12, 1966. It was an immediate hit, ran two full seasons, and won two Emmy Awards, but before long The Monkees’ music was more popular than the show itself.

After Screen Gems Television released the group’s first album without indicating that the instruments heard on the record were played by studio musicians, Nesmith and Tork were embarrassed and infuriated, and The Monkees successfully fought for control of their own music.

“Everyone was accomplished,” Nesmith once told Rolling Stone. “The notion [that] I was the only musician is one of those rumors that got started and won’t stop—but it was not true … We were also kids with our own taste in music and were happier performing songs we liked—and/or wrote—than songs that were handed to us.”

On January 16, 1967, the band held its first, full-fledged recording session. The group’s “second” album, More of the Monkees, spent 70 weeks on the Billboard charts and was No. 1 for 18 weeks. It was certified quintuple platinum, selling more than five million copies, and was the third-highest-selling album of the 1960s. The Monkees sold 75 million albums worldwide during their career.

Only Dolenz is still alive. Jones died in 2012, followed by Tork in 2019 and Nesmith in 2021.

As The Monkees—both the show and the group—vaulted into television and music history, so did the amazing, instantly recognizable Monkeemobile. Who knows what the car might have looked like if designer Dean Jeffries hadn’t received permission from his employer to build it.

When he received the request to build the Monkeemobile, Jeffries was under contract with Model Products Corporation (MPC). He approached CEO George Toteff and shared the offer that he’d received. Toteff was immediately supportive—in fact, he turned it into a win-win.

Toteff reached out to Pontiac advertising exec Jim Wangers, who is often referred to in the classic-car community as the godfather of the GTO, arguable the world’s first muscle car. Two worked out a deal that was mutually beneficial. Wangers took advantage of the promotional opportunity and sent Jeffries two 1966 Pontiac GTO convertibles, both powered by a 389-cubic-inch, four-barrel V-8 mated to an automatic transmission.

Meanwhile, MPC was given exclusive rights to produce toy Monkeemobile model kits and went on to sell seven million of them.

The first Monkeemobile that Jeffries built for the show was completed in 10 days. The second, slightly different and used for promotional appearances, was finished in four.

Among each car’s distinct features were a split two-piece windshield, stretched nose and tail, swooped hood, flares in back, exaggerated headlamps and taillamps, touring-car convertible top, four bucket seats and a third row bench seat where the trunk was originally located, rear-mounted parachute, and GTO emblem on the front grille. In addition, side pipes protruded from just behind the front wheels, and a GMC 6-71 supercharger stuck out of the hood.

The promo version was also equipped with a solid rear axle (without springs) and was given extra weight in the rear so that it could pop a wheelie.

When the NBC show ended in March 1968, designer Jeffries was offered the opportunity to own one of the Monkeemobiles for $2000 (or less, depending on who’s telling the story), but he thought he could always build one of his own, so he passed.

Later that year, the TV Monkeemobile accompanied The Monkees on a world tour and was somehow left behind in Australia. It eventually showed up in Puerto Rico, where it was used as a hotel courtesy car, but when the hotel went out of business in 1992, the Puerto Rican government auctioned it for $5000 to a collector in New York, who restored it in time for a Monkees television special in 1997. It was later displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The car remains in the John Norris family—it’s owned by Norris, his three sisters, and an uncle—and now resides in New Jersey.

Another custom car icon, George Barris, the creator of the ’60s Batmobile, bought the second Monkeemobile and added a few modifications of his own, including new paint and a modern sound system. In 2008, Barris auctioned the car at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale, and Michigan’s Mel Guthrie purchased it for $396,000. He has no regrets.

“I’m very proud of this car. I’ve loved it since I was a little kid,” Guthrie told a Hagerty film crew in 2014. “I used to watch reruns of the show after school … I just thought this was the coolest car ever … I never dreamed that I would own it.”

And few could have dreamed that—nearly six decades later—the show, the band, and the Monkeemobile would become so beloved that they still draw adulation from fans from all over the world.

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